The horizontal line represents the person’s life.1665 - born1700 - “Courtship Alamode”1704 - “Love at first Sight”1804 - “The Historic
and Life of king James the sext”1726 - died

Craufurd, David, Esq.

was born
at Drumsoy near Glasgow, 1665, and brought up to the
law; but seldom went to the bar, his taste being confined
to history and antiquities, in which he made very great
progress. He was appointed historiographer-royal of Scotland by queen Anne, and it was at that time thought that
no man ever deserved that place better. In 1706 he published, 8vo, “Memoirs of Scotland” during the times of
the four regents, which has gone through two editions.
The “Peerage,” and “History of the Stuart Family,”
attributed to him in the last edition of this Dictionary,
belong to George Crawfurd, of whom we have no account;
but, perhaps, with more reason, the Biographia Dramatica
attributes to him two plays, “Courtship Alamode,” 1700,
and “Love at first Sight,” 1704. He is said to have died
at Drumsoy, 1726.

Crawfurd’s “Memoirs” have hitherto been held in considerable estimation, and frequently quoted as authorities;
but a discovery has lately been made which proves him to
Jiave been in one instance at least, shamefully regardless
| of veracity, and has procured him the disgrace of being
“the first Scotchman who published his own compositions
as the genuine productions of a former age.” This discovery was made by Mr. Laing, the editor of “The Historic
and Life of king James the sext,” published in 1804, 8vo.
He informs us that in Crawfurd’s “Memoirs of the Affairs
of Scotland,” references occur to a ms. in support of certain positions, which includes nothing that in the least
countenances them, and the above “Historic,” printed
from that identical ms. amply confirms this heavy charge,
“the earliest, if not the most impudent literary furgery
ever practised in Scotland.” Every circumstance in the
ms. unfavourable either to queen Mary or to Bothwell, or
favourable to their adversaries, Crawford carefully suppressed; while every vague assertion in Camden, Spottiswood, Melvill, and others, or in the state papers which
Crawfurd had transcribed from the CottonMss. is inserted
in the Memoirs; and these writers are quoted on the margin as collateral authorities, confirming the evidence of
some unknown contemporary. Fictions, invented by Crawfurd himself, are profusely intermixed: and even the illdigested form of the genuine narrative is a pretext for the
transposition and alteration of facts. Crawfurd, having
thus, on the narrow basis of the original ms. constructed
spurious memoirs of his own, “declares solemnly that he
has not wrested any of the words to add to one man’s credit,
or to impair the honesty of another: that he has neither
heightened nor diminished any particular character or action; but that he has kept as close as possible to the meaning and sense of his author;” and even in his titlepage
professes that the work “is faithfully published from an
authentic manuscript.” The Memoirs, adds the editor
of the “Historic,” have been quoted as genuine by Hume
and Robertson, and their authority has been re-echoed
by disputants as a full confirmation of the most absolute
fictions. Nor is it possible to acquit Goodall of connivance
at the fraud: he had collated the memoirs with two copies
of the original ms. and was conscious of the imposture,
which, in the preface to the second edition, he endeavours
partly to vindicate, and partly to conceal. 1

1

From the preceding edition of this Dictionary, all the errors of which we
are afraid we have not been able to correct.—See also Mr. Laing’s pieface to the
above-mentioned “Historie;” an ingenious article on the same in the British
Critic, vol. XXVIII.; and Laing’s “History of Scotland.”

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